Palm Coast, FL (May 21, 2021) Known across the globe for durable, high-quality boats members of the Brunswick Corporation welcomed guests and dignitaries to the ground breaking ceremony for the Flagler County Boston Whaler location on Friday morning.
Bringing an inspiring message and a commitment to the community, the day was momentous enough to draw Brunswick Corporation’s CEO David Foulkes and Aine Denari, Executive Vice President, and President of the Brunswick Boat Group to the area for the official unveiling, and during his remarks, Palm Coast City Councilman Nick Klufas expressed his appreciation.
“Our community is honored and proud that you’ve chosen our area for your new operations,” stated Klufas.
Noting the influx of engineering, IT, design, sales, transit and marketing jobs to the local community, Klufas highlighted the new facility as an opportunity to help fulfill Palm Coast’s vision for the future.
“The addition of your plant to our community solidifies the very foundation of our commitment to being business-friendly, to grow and retain local talent, and to continue to foster the successful quality of life our residents have grown to admire and respect,” he said.
“The next time we’re here together we’ll be breaking a champagne bottle on the bow of your first vessel to roll off this assembly line.”
Gleaming with fresh paint in the Boston Whaler’s signature red, Tom Laraway, director of operations for the Flagler County location beamed with pride as he provided a tour of the facility.
Welcoming back professional boat builders and ready to train the next generation of the workforce in the finer points of Boston Whaler quality construction, the Flagler County location will be home to 300-400 employees. With several models set for assembly on site, when all of the new equipment is installed Laraway anticipates rolling a boat a day out of the location.
“We’re hugely excited,” said Laraway, showing the first boat that will start assembly on Monday, a 23 Outrage.
“I’ve been with Whaler for about 16 years and we came up a lot to see some of the great things that Sea Ray did here. Another thing is the talent in this area. We’ve already seen people coming in from all over saying that want to be a part of it, so that’s exciting for us.”
Increases in pay scale pair well with the benefits which Faustina Shedlock, director of HR for Boston Whaler said kick in fairly quickly.
“We’re training people on site so they don’t need to have any experience. We have great benefits at 30 days – medical, dental, vision. We have a quarterly wellness that we issue out to our hourly workforce, we also do profit sharing, 401K match, so a lot of great perks,” she said, inspired by the company’s growth over the past few years.
“We’ve been growing, we’ve been expanding, the marine industry is doing great so it’s just an exciting time to be with the company and see it really expand,” said Shedlock.
It was during the turning of dirt that longtime employee Kevin Kelley was recognized.
A 35-year employee of the Brunswick Corporation, he’s been in for the long haul since day one, and seen the ups and downs of the industry. As the maintenance supervisor, he remembers when the facility, which was once home to Sea Ray, was shuttered and became emotional when sharing his happiness at the thought of seeing co-workers return under the Boston Whaler mantle.
“I started in 1986. It was kind of heart wrenching to see that family break up at Sea Ray, but just more importantly, those people, a lot of them are going to come back and it will be great to work side-by-side with those people again,” shared Kelley.
“It’s very special and I’m very excited for the community. It’s great for jobs and things that this will create for the county,” he said of the facility’s reopening.
Foulkes was equally optimistic about the Flagler County Boston Whaler location’s future, especially as builders have worked hard to keep up with the global demand for boating.
“It’s a huge point of attraction that we know there are people in the community who’ve spent a longtime boating, are very skilled, very passionate about it, so offering an opportunity for them to get back into boating, it’s great for them, but it’s super for us, to have a skilled workforce available so quickly,” said Foulkes.
“As I mentioned, ramping up as fast as we can is really important to us so we’ve been working very hard on the facility, very hard on hiring and certainly having that skilled workforce available many of whom know Brunswick very well is a tremendous attraction for us.”
Interested in becoming part of the Boston Whaler team? Find out more here.
